


May 2, 2012

by rocketsfindplanets



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Soulmates, i dont know how to tag this i am so sorry, is this.. angst ??, not as happy as it sounds?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 06:30:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14302872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketsfindplanets/pseuds/rocketsfindplanets
Summary: He dreamt, that night, of his soulmate, for the first time since May 2, 2012. His name was Auston Matthews, and he had the brightest fucking smile, and the deepest, most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen. And he was a Toronto Maple Leaf.





	May 2, 2012

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 (technically still ur birthday LOL)

Mitch’s future had always been— uncertain.

He knew that he didn’t have to find his soulmate right away. Didn’t have to. So many people did, though, and he was reminded of it every time he saw, like, Dylan and Connor, or whoever else.

And it was fine, it was totally fine. Everything else was fine.

He’d grown up dreaming of him, through his childhood. He had a name sometimes, or sometimes he didn’t, and he always had that same bright smile, those same deep, brown eyes.

On the bookshelf in his room, there was paper after paper with young Mitch’s handwriting scrawled here and there, describing what his soulmate looked like and what happened each time he saw him, always marked with a date. He had always wanted to remember it all, so that there was no chance he’d miss him.

(Mitch learned, later, that that wasn’t really a thing that happened. When he saw him, he’d know. Yet he still kept the papers, a promise to himself that he would find him, one day.)

The thing was, though. The thing was, the last paper was dated May 2, 2012.

He knew that it was dumb to panic. He’d seen a billion infomercials for products offering to, like, suppress all of the soulmate shit. You wouldn’t have the dreams, anymore, and your soulmate wouldn’t dream of you, anymore. And yet. He couldn’t imagine why, why somebody would do it, not any more than he could stop thinking about _what if something happened_.

What if— what if he died, or?

What if he’d seen the dreams of Mitch and didn’t want him? Didn’t want what they’d had?

He didn’t like to think about it, so he didn’t. He thought about hockey, and did what he could to make sure fate wasn’t defining him.

He didn’t need some guy to make him happy. He was making his own happiness every day when he pulled on that green jersey and went out on the ice to do what he loved.

He got drafted to his childhood team, Toronto. And he got the C for the Knights. And he let himself forget all about everything else, because why worry about what could have been when he was living out his dream in London?

Mitch was happy, with or without his soulmate.

He threw himself into his hockey, and into being happy with what he had. He hung out with Dylan and Connor without being jealous, and he watched dumb romance films without being jealous, either. He was getting pretty good at the whole moving on thing, he thought.

And then prospects for the 2016 NHL Entry Draft started being discussed, and suddenly, he was doubting how good he really was at it.

Mitch was sure that he’d seen him before, because all hockey kids had seen each other at some point or another, right? But he was American, from _Arizona_ of all places, and he hadn’t played in the CHL at all, so many not.

He was pretty sure he would have remembered, if he had seen him before.

His name was Auston Matthews, and. It was the eyes that did it for Mitch. He got one good look at a picture of him and he knew. He knew it was him, he knew that it was Auston, Auston, Auston.

Mitch said the name over and over again in his head until it didn’t sound real anymore, just letters forced together into a word, no longer a name that Mitch could imagine in his life. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be able to.

He shut out news of the draft and focused on hockey, focused on playing his game.

The London Knights won the Memorial Cup, that year.

The Toronto Maple Leafs got the first draft pick, that year. The Toronto Maple Leafs selected Auston Matthews first overall, that year. Mitch couldn’t exactly shut that one out.

There were chances for them to talk, to get to know each other ahead of time. Mitch did his best to avoid every single one of those chances. He mostly succeeded, too, and by the time they finally really met, they were at camp for the Leafs.

“Hey, Mitch.”

They were out on the ice, most of the guys just kind of messing around, trying to get to know the new faces, which included him, and included Auston Matthews. He smiled, tight, knowing he didn’t have any other options. If there was a problem, one of the two of them would get sent away, he was sure. After watching Auston go first, Mitch wasn’t sure he felt good about his chances of being the one who stayed.

It was all him, he knew. Auston was trying. Auston was talking to him, and being friendly, and doing all of those things that, you know, you did with teammates.

Mitch hadn’t known what to expect, when this finally happened. It had been over four years since he had last entertained the thought in a serious manner, and that left him scrambling to try to figure out what to do next.

He wasn’t sure he had expected to hate him. He still wasn’t sure if that was what it was.

He just— he knew, now, that Auston was very definitively alive, it wasn’t like his soulmate really had died or something. So Auston had chosen this, had chosen to erase him from his life, and now, now, he wanted to talk to him? Mitch didn’t like the idea of being at call for Auston whenever he decided it was convenient to have a soulmate, or whatever.

When he’d been younger, growing up, he had always wondered about if his soulmate would be a hockey player, too. He had worried about matching up schedules, trying to stay in touch and in love despite the distance and the rivalries and everything else. He guessed he didn’t have to worry about that, anymore.

“Hey,” Mitch said. It was flat, and not at all Mitch, and he didn’t regret it one bit.

The smile on Auston’s lips faded, just a bit, and Mitch wished he didn’t feel the pang of hurt that he did. “Oh.”

Mitch nodded. “Yeah.” Like that explained it. And then he skated away, because they were actually starting practice, and he needed to focus on proving that he deserved to be on that roster. He could do this. Putting hockey over soulmate shit was way beyond second nature.

If he saw Auston staring at him as he left the rink, he didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

 

 

 

Mitch spent a long fucking time in bed that night, lying awake, staring up at his ceiling, and thinking.

This was what he had always wanted. To be playing for the Leafs, to be playing in the NHL at all. This was what all of his hard work had lead up to. This was _everything_ he had always wanted.

He wondered why, then, it felt so wrong. Part of him knew.

He dreamt, that night, of his soulmate, for the first time since May 2, 2012. His name was Auston Matthews, and he had the brightest fucking smile, and the deepest, most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen. And he was a Toronto Maple Leaf.

When Mitch woke up, he thought of the papers, leafed through them. (He didn’t even have an excuse for himself as to why he always brought them, why they didn’t remain neat, stacked on his bookshelf.) He grabbed a blank page, and stared at it, thinking. He didn’t write anything down.

 

 

 

Bonding, a bit, was inevitable.

Mitch knew better than to fuck with team chemistry, so he talked to Auston, and he even pretended to like it, sometimes.

They kind of clicked. Mitch kind of hated it. (He really hated it.)

As the season got started, Mitch was still up, and Auston was still up, and things started to feel like they might be okay. The team was close, and they were all having fun, and Mitch almost got to the point where he wasn’t thinking, every night, about how great it would be if he was with his teammates from London. He liked the team, he liked where he was at. It was hockey.

He took a step back, at some point. He was happy.

He was happy, and he was kind of past the whole Auston Matthews thing, even.

Auston was still trying so, so hard. He could tell the chemistry was there, they both could. Mitch was still the one resisting, the one saying that no, he was busy, he’d try to catch Auston later. That no, he was tired, he was planning on heading back to his place to catch some sleep.

Mitch didn’t know if he was ready to say anything other than no.

He did anyway, eventually, coming off the high of a big win. He took one look into Auston’s eyes, and he knew that he didn’t know how to say no. He didn’t know how to say no forever, whether he was ready to say something else or not. So he didn’t, he said sure, he could go to dinner, and that was that.

Auston offered to take him and Mitch said no, claiming he needed to stop by his place for a minute first, and when Auston offered to take Mitch to his place for a minute first, there was nothing he could really say to that.

(He was getting worse at saying no.)

The ride was quiet, Auston occasionally saying something about practice, and Mitch saying just enough in response that he wasn’t technically ignoring him.

When Mitch saw where Auston was talking him, he couldn’t help the smile that crept up onto his face. “You sure the team approves of us eating here?” he asked. “Last time I checked, this place has, like, the greasiest burgers ever.”

Auston laughed, and Mitch’s breath caught at the sound, overcome by a strong sense of fondness, a strong sense that this was where he was meant to be.

“Uh, no? Come on, Mitch. We’re young enough, we still have plenty of time to do dumb shit like this.”

The words resonated with Mitch for longer than he cared to admit. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, we do.”

 

 

 

Auston was perfect.

That didn’t really do it justice, but Mitch didn’t really have the words to describe it.

He’d had lots of good friends back in the O, friends he’d known from hockey for years. They’d had years to bond, and that still didn’t feel anything like what he felt with Auston.

Their interests and personalities were just so in line with each other, and the smile he had when he got out at his place was bigger than any smile hockey had given him in a while. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but— he was happy, so did it matter?

He slept better, that night, than he had in awhile.

 

 

 

_November 26, 2016_

_I wish I didn’t want him._

 

 

 

“You wanna come over and play CoD?”

“Got time for a movie?”

“Grab lunch?”

Mitch said yes, every time.

 

 

 

Mitch was playing hockey, and he had a new best friend. That was all. Even if he and Auston got some shit from the guys for how close they were, it was worth it, because Auston got him in a way a lot of people didn’t.

He didn’t let himself think about the whole soulmate thing, and it was fine, even after months. If Auston wasn’t gonna have a problem, he wasn’t either.

When they played together on the same line, just messing around during practice, they scored together, a lot. Grinning and skating into Auston’s arms felt a little bit too close to what Mitch had always wanted, but he wasn’t going to be the one to mention it. They had a pretty nice thing going, he thought, and he didn’t want it to end.

 

 

 

“Miiiiiiiitch,” Auston whined. “I need somebody to beat, come on.”

Mitch snickered, shaking his head. “Why do you want me to come, then?”

Auston punched him lightly in the arm, but the smile didn’t fade from his face. “Because I’m better than you?”

And that was how it usually went, before Mitch ended up crammed onto a couch with Auston, staring intently at the screen while they played NHL, or any of the other games Auston owned.

In the end, Auston won, and was immediately rubbing it in Mitch’s face, who just rolled his eyes. “No fair! I’d win if I was playing as the Leafs, too.”

“Try me.”

Mitch lost, again, to Auston as the fucking Coyotes. He kept his mouth shut after that.

By the time they were done playing, Mitch was happy and tired, slumped up against Auston side, chatting about the Erie Otters, of all things. Dylan this and Dylan that, and Auston was just watching him and listening, nodding along as he spoke.

“Hey, Mitch?”

“Hm?” Mitch sat up a bit and looked up at Auston, a bit sleepy after just lying around, long enough that the adrenaline of ‘Chel had faded.

“Just— I’m gonna do something dumb, okay?”

Mitch was going to ask what he meant by that, but before he could, Auston’s lips were pressed up against his in an answer.

There was a second of processing before Mitch scrambled to get away, pushing Auston off of him and standing up all at once. “What the _fuck_?”

“I’m sorry, I thought—“

“Fuck you, Auston.” Mitch’s heart was fluttering and he was unsure of what to do next. Everything in his body wanted more, wanted to dig his fingers into Auston’s shirt and pull him closer.

Instead, he turned on his heel and left, walking toward his place until he could get an Uber.

 

 

 

Mitch was… angry, if he had to put a name to it. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling of Auston. Pressed up against his side, their lips together.

He’d felt it before, in his dreams, and he hated that it knew what it felt like for real. He had wanted it for so long, not with Auston, but with someone, with his soulmate, back before he’d known that they were one and the same, back before the name Auston Matthews ever made it onto his radar.

He didn’t sleep.

 

 

 

_January 20, 2017_

_Fuck him for making me feel like this._

 

 

 

Mitch showed up to practice exhausted, and kind of regretting all of the decisions that had lead up to that moment. They had a game that day, and he knew he needed to focus, shut out anything that wasn’t winning the game, playing his best.

He avoided Auston through practice, all the way up until the team was in the locker room after.

Mitch lingered too long, waiting for Auston to leave first. Instead, they ended up there alone, and Mitch gathered up his shit as quickly as possible, just wanting to get out.

“Mitch—”

“Don’t talk to me,” Mitch snapped, drawing his arm away when Auston reached out to grab it.

“What?” Auston asked, a bit helplessly. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

He almost just walked out. Something in him snapped, though, four years and counting of pent up frustration, of moving on from the idea that he wasn’t gonna get his soulmate, and he kind of had a lot to say.

“Seriously? You— you fucking block me out for years, make me think that something fucking happened to you, and now you just… what, you think you can just walk into my life and try to kiss me? That’s fucking low, Auston.”

Auston’s face went bright red and Mitch felt a morbid sense of pride at that. He hoped Auston felt bad. Felt sorry. He wasn’t sure an apology would cut it, but still.

“Mitch, I’m sorry, seriously… I didn’t know, okay, I—”

“Didn’t know?” Mitch echoed, disbelieving. “I spent years dreaming about you, and I wrote it down every fucking time because I didn’t want to miss you, and you, you didn’t even fucking know it was me? Bullshit.”

“Mitch—”

That time, he didn’t stop himself from walking out.

 

 

 

Mitch was a pretty forgetful person, which was why, at 7:00, when Matt was supposed to pick him up for dinner, he was lying in bed trying to stop himself from crying, unable to help the sniffles that kept escaping here and there.

When he heard the knock on his door he panicked, throwing off his blanket and wiping desperately at his eyes. “Who is it?” he called, standing but not going to the door quite yet.

“Seriously? Mitch, are we going out or not?”

Mitch glanced at the time, swearing under his breath as the plans came back to him. “I— not today, Martin, okay? I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking when I made those plans, I…”

“Mitch?” Matt’s voice was so much softer this time, and it made Mitch choke up, a bit, the care and nurture. “Are you crying? What the fuck, Mitch, let me in.”

He wasn’t sure what made him do it, but Mitch got up and went to the door, slowly opening it. He was sure his eyes were still red and that he looked like a mess, but he knew Matt wouldn’t judge him. If it were anybody else he might have said no, but Matt had kind of taken him under his wing from the start, and if there was anybody on the team he could trust, surely it was him.

Matt guided him back to the couch where he had been sitting before, almost motherly in a way that was so unlike him. Mitch was sure that he didn’t deserve him.

“Mitch, what’s going on?”

He took a long moment to compose himself, taking a deep breath before managing, “Auston…”

Matt’s face morphed into something like anger, then. “Did he do something? Because I swear to God, I’ll—”

“No, no, it’s not like that,” Mitch promised, even though it pretty much was like that. “I just… Promise not to tell anybody else?”

“Of course. Tell me whatever, okay?”

“Yeah. Well, Auston… He’s my fucking soulmate, and…”

He launched into the story, then, about his childhood, about befriending Auston anyway, about Auston fucking kissing him.

“Is it bad that I still want him? I hate him so much, but… Nobody gets me like he does, we’re just so good together, and it pisses me off. I hate that we’d be so good together. I hate that he’s my soulmate so much, he doesn’t deserve me…”

He hadn’t said it before then, hadn’t really thought it in any concrete sense, but Mitch was pretty sure that it was true. Sure, he could forget about everything and just be happy with Auston now, but it wasn’t fair. Mitch had gone through so much, and he was supposed to just forgive and forget?

“Mitch? I know this is gonna sound dumb, but you should probably try talking to him?”

Mitch huffed, shaking his head. “Pointless,” he proclaimed.

“Seriously. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to talk to him, but you need to. You need to figure out… why he was blocking you out, I guess?”

He thought about it, and as much as he hated it, he knew Matt was right. It was a lot easier to be reasonable with the voice of reason himself sitting there and preaching to him. “You don’t think he’ll be mad at me?”

“He’s the one who tried to kiss you, right?”

“I guess.”

“You’ll be fine, then,” Matt said. “It’s probably gonna suck, but you two can’t be upset with each other. It’s gonna kill team chemistry. And I want you to be happy, Mitchy.”

He scoffed at the nickname, but he knew Matt was right. “Thanks, Matt,” he said, quiet, and Matt just patted him on the thigh like it was nothing.

“Now, how about you get yourself fixed up and we go out to dinner?”

 

 

 

He didn’t ask Auston before he came over. Auston didn’t ask him before he kissed him, or before he pushed him out of his life, so it was probably fair.

When Auston opened the door, he looked surprised, but Mitch wasn’t exactly waiting for an invitation in.

Auston did move out of his way to let him through the door, anyway, so maybe it would be easier than Mitch thought. Easier than Mitch would have made it if things were the other way around, surely.

“Auston, we gotta talk.”

“Okay?”

He went to Auston’s bedroom and sat down on the bed, wishing, vaguely, that he didn’t know where the room was without having to ask. Auston followed him in and sat down on the bed, as far away from Mitch as possible. Mitch didn’t care.

“I’m sorry that I freaked out on you. I just want an explanation, though, okay? Of everything. Like, what you meant when you said you didn’t know it was me or whatever? And why you blocked me out. Why you’re still blocking me out.”

Mitch had almost expected, after the kiss, to start having the dreams again, had almost expected things to go back to normal. He had been pretty disappointed to be wrong.

Auston took a deep breath, and then said, “Hockey.”

“Hockey?” Mitch echoed.

“Hockey. I… Around the WHL draft, I started taking the suppressants. It was easier to focus on hockey with— without, you know…”

Mitch bit his tongue. “Ah.”

“I know. Trust me, I know. But I, like… The dreams were so vivid, and I’d have them all the time. Like, visions sometimes, not even while I sleep… When I decided to take hockey all the way, I had to do something about it, I couldn’t, like, have a flashback out on the ice or something. I saw you all the time, Mitch. Every day. I wanted that so, so badly.”

Mitch wanted to ask why, why Auston would put hockey above his fucking _soulmate_ , but he got it. He’d been there, before, too, even if his hand had kind of been forced.

“Oh,” he said instead, because he wasn’t sure what else to say to that. “But, you didn’t… didn’t know it was me?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Auston clarified. “I thought, I really thought… But it’s been years since I saw you.”

“Four and a half years.”

“I— yeah.”

“Did you love me?” Mitch asked, suddenly.

Auston looked up at him, finally, looking him in the eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I still do.”

Mitch took a deep breath and nodded, gaze flickering down to his shoes. “Okay,” he said softly. “I’m not mad at you.”

“So why…”

“I can’t… I’m sorry, Aus, but I just don’t think I can just forgive you that easily, even if I’m not… mad, I guess. I know it’s not your fault, you did what you had to do for hockey, I get that, but… You have no idea how much I worried. I thought something happened to you, or that you didn’t want me. That I wasn’t good enough for you or something.”

“Mitch, you’ve always been good enough—”

  
“I know,” Mitch sighed. “I know. But I just… I need time, okay? I think I could still love you. Still be in love with you. Just not now.”

Auston looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. “Okay,” he eventually said instead.

“Okay.” Mitch looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow?”

“Yeah. See you at practice.”

 

 

 

Things were better.

The Leafs were doing pretty well, and nobody said anything if they noticed that Mitch and Auston were a bit off, were a bit less attached at the hip than they had been a week or two ago.

Mitch wasn’t sure if things were going better with Auston, not in the way that he wanted them to be going better. At least— not until about two weeks later. They lost to the Islanders and that kind of sucked, but it was hardly what was on Mitch’s mind.

 

 

 

_February 7, 2017_

_He had curly blonde hair, dark brown eyes. A bit taller than I was. His name was Eli._

_We were out on a date at some park that I don’t recognise, out on a walk. It was kind of dark out, but there were a lot of street lights. There was a lake nearby, too? He told me he loved me, and he kissed me. Then he told me that he was sorry he had to go, and that when he got back, he hoped I’d still be waiting for him._

_I don’t know where he was going. I wish I knew where he was going. I wish he didn’t have to leave._

 

 

 

He shoved the paper in with all of the others, where he knew nobody would find them. He grabbed the two others he'd written that season and threw them away. Then he called Auston, even though it was still before seven in the morning, because what the fuck.

“Auston?” he said, as soon as he picked up. “What the fuck? I just— I fucking—”

“Mitch, what are you talking about?” It was clear that Auston had just woken up, and Mitch almost felt a bit bad, but—

“I just had a fucking dream about you. But, like, not you you, like, like, a fucking soulmate dream. What the fuck, Auston?”

There was a long pause on the line before Auston said anything. “Uh, yeah.”

“Yeah? Auston, what’s going on?”

“Well…” He heard Auston clear his throat and he bit at his lip, trying not to let the rasp of Auston’s voice get to him. “After we talked? I just… I know how upset you were. So I wanted to make sure you knew how much I cared about you. You’re my soulmate, Mitch, and nothing’s gonna change that. I’m willing to do anything for you, okay?”

Mitch was in awe. He didn’t even know what to say. He’d spent so long thinking of Auston as some asshole who didn’t even care, and here he was screwing himself over, just for Mitch’s sake. Fuck. “What the _fuck_ , Auston?” Mitch said again.

“What? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“ _No_. Auston, oh my God. I want you to be able to play hockey more than anything. I can’t believe you did this…”

“I’m… sorry?”

“Please don’t be sorry, fuck.” Mitch took a deep breath. “Can you come over when you get a chance? Please? I think we need to talk?”

“Okay. Yeah. Gimme a few minutes?”

“As long as you need.”

 

 

 

Mitch and Auston ended up sitting on Mitch’s couch, together, and everything was quiet until Auston finally spoke.

“I really just wanted to do what I thought would make you happy, Mitch.”

“And you thought this would make me happy? We’re hockey players, Aus. I know you love this team as much as I do, so I just want you to be able to fucking play.”

Auston nodded dumbly. “Okay.”

“So you’ll take the suppressant again?”

“I guess.” Auston sighed, looking away. “It just… it feels like nothing I do is ever good enough for you. We have so much chemistry, surely you have to see that, too.”

“Of course I see that, fuck. I care about you too, Auston, I promise.”

It was kind of hitting Mitch how many assumptions he had made, how one-sided his thought process had been. After all that time, thinking only about how much it sucked for him, it was hard to consider Auston’s side of things. It was hard to consider how difficult it must have been for him, too.

“I know. I just. I love you so much, and it feels like I messed everything up.”

“You didn’t mess anything up,” Mitch was quick to assure him, shaking his head. “It’s… gonna be hard. But seriously, it’s the two of us. We aren’t gonna get separated so easily.”

Auston laughed softly, and Mitch took that as a win. It was the little things, sometimes.

“So. Are we gonna try this?” Auston asked.

“I think so. I think… I think I might need a little bit more time? Just to think everything over?”

“As long as you need.”

 

 

 

Things were better, especially when it came to Auston. The two of them were back on like they’d never stop, and the team all relaxed a bit. Nobody had ever said anything, and even if they hadn’t been at each other's’ throats, per se, there had definitely been something wrong.

Which was fair, because there really had been something wrong.

But things were better, and Auston was back to kicking Mitch’s ass at NHL, even if he wouldn’t admit it. They were soulmates, after all, and the universe was doing its best to keep them together. Mitch thought it was doing a pretty good job. (Matt smiled at him in the locker room, knowing, and Mitch knew he'd done something right.)

There was a bit of resentment, still, sure. It wasn’t easy to get over almost five years of thinking he’d been abandoned. But Mitch was trying his best, and it was working, so there were no problems, there.

The Leafs lost in six to the Capitals in the first round of playoffs, which sucked, of course it did, but it didn’t get them down too much. They were a team, and Mitch couldn’t imagine being happier with a group of guys. They were his family.

After the season, Auston came to stay with Mitch a few days, mostly just because they could. No games the next day to stop them from staying up all night playing video games.

The scene felt familiar, playing CoD for hours until they were exhausted, Mitch slumping up against Auston’s side, blinking away the sleep that threatened to overcome him.

“Hey,” Auston said, quiet, and Mitch looked up at him through his lashes, not wanting to open his eyes all the way. “Can I kiss you?”

The question took Mitch by surprise, and he didn’t know how to answer, at first. He knew what he wanted to say, though. He’d wanted to say it for five years. “Please.”

It was a firm kiss, nothing like their first one had been, and Mitch thought that he liked this one a lot better. After Auston pulled away, Mitch kissed him again, mostly because he could. He’d wanted this for so long, and now that he had it, knew that he was ready for it, he wasn’t letting it go anytime soon.

They kissed, slow and lazy, for what seemed like forever, before Mitch asked, “Can I show you something?”

And then he was getting up and going over to his bookshelf, where all of his loose papers were living again, now that their season was over. He handed the pile over to Auston, the earliest on top, starting as early as Mitch had known how to write.

“Mitch, is this…”

“Yeah. I just… thought you might want to see. Since you don’t, like? Get to see it anymore? Maybe I saw something that you didn’t.”

Mitch sat down by him again, reading over his shoulder, watching as Auston read through his dreams, occasionally struggling to read Mitch’s messy handwriting. “Sorry if you can’t read some of it,” he laughed, nestling his head into the crook of Auston’s neck.

“I’d read anything for you,” Auston promised, and it was fucking dumb, but Mitch still smiled. Auston was his soulmate, and everything he did was practically perfect.

Mitch felt certain about his future, more certain than he ever had before, and if he got to have this, forever? He was pretty sure that was better than anything, captain’s patch and Memorial Cup included.

 

 

 

_May 2, 2012_

_He took me out to an arcade, and it was so sweet. He bought me like a million coins and I played so many games. I hope that happens this life too because a million coins at an arcade sounds like my idea of a good time._

_He had brown hair and brown eyes and he smiled so much._

_After we left the arcade he told me he loved me more than anything in the world, and that we will always be together, in that life and the next. I think I believe him._

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you like this omg you know this ship isnt necessarily my thing but i hope i did it some justice lol.. whats a maple leaf honestly ????? wish i could be in winnipeg, hope this makes up for it a little bit :** ALSO me: needs a fuckign fake name for auston.. ME: HM WHAT COULD I NAME HIM :))) STARTS WITH C ENDS WITH APTAIN COWBOY
> 
> everybody wish pkd a happy birthdayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
> 
> hmu here in the comments or on tumblr @ tylerparsons w/ anything!!!!!!!


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